I vaguely remember hearing about a cool idea for a game. Basically, it was multiplayer only, where one player was a human with a lamp or a flashlight who was trying to reach the end of a level. All the other players were werewolves or something, and if the light got shined on them while they were moving, they died. If one killed the human player, they took that character over, and became the human trying to reach the end.

The interesting bit is that it was more of an experiment than a real game, and limited copies would be sold. Only the players who entered quickly enough would own it, and after a short time, the servers would be shut down with some cool end to the story of the dystopian world it was taking place in.

I can’t find anything on this, but I swear I’ve seen footage of it and read about it. Has anyone heard of this? Was it some super vivid dream? Halp!

Okay since it seems this is new knowledge to people allow me to do a little news drop here. “The Flock” was a fun game, I will not deny, I was in the alpha test; additionally it had a unique and fun game mechanic that the whole thing was built around. However the Developers shot themselves in the face with it.(Not literally but kind of).

This is an amazingly unique game that is incredibly fun and scary with a group of friends however I cannot stress enough not to support these Developers. The game when launched was launched with a limited number of lives for the entire community.
This meant that that each time the “Lightbringer” I’ll call him; died, it dropped the counter by one. So if you played 100 games where he died 10 times then you’d get 1000 and if that was the maximum live count then what would happen?

The game permanently shuts down forever.

I shit you not. The Devs took a unique concept, held an alpha, had good feedback, and more; people were stoked, and then they revealed that the game had an active life counter and the game flopped immediately. This meant that in this multiplayer exclusive title, they announced something that would allow them to farm all the money they could quickly and have an excuse to cut support; however when players were too smart they didn’t even buy it, thus causing it to flop and the counter hasn’t even come close to zero.

I do not care if this game is sold for free, no words can describe how any amount of money will support these devs for their scummy business practice and even if it becomes free that’s still supporting them by showing you cared enough to play the game even after what they pulled.

#TL;DR
###Do not buy the game; at launch the Devs created a “Life” counter for the entire community that when it hits zero discontinues multiplayer functionality in a multiplayer exclusive title. Do not support these developers by buying their game and supporting these practices. If gamers want the industry to change show them with your wallet, not with your disapproval. Not only is it terrible to support Developers like this but the game is also literally dead.

#Final Notes

When I state that the multiplayer is dead, I mean it’s literally dead. Zero players and as far as I remember, no custom match functionality.

Whilst reading through their FAQ on more information since I dropped this game immediately I found this!

The Flock FAQ:

Q: Why do this??!
As we’ve mentioned before we want to convey the extinction story as something to be experienced by the players in our multiplayer game. But we also have an important second reason, so bear with us for a moment.

Most indie multiplayer games lose their player base within a year. Even heavy hitters such as Titanfall and Evolve have a fast dwindling player base. The most popular games such as League of Legends and Counter-Strike still have a somewhat anticlimactic ending of their players’ experience. Because in the end at some point – and this can be after five years or two months – you’ll stop playing because you either got bored of it, you’ve seen it all or you, or your friends have no longer time to play.

We want to tackle that problem, and make sure The Flock ends with a climax after which the game will be fondly remembered. Much like a lot of single player experiences where you have a huge battle or a boss fight.

We have three design goals for this game. We want to make a:

scary/tense game

immersive experience (that you really feel like a monster, or being hunted as the Carrier)

and do it in an unconventional way.

The population plan ties into these design goals and strengthens all of these. We wouldn’t be doing this if we were making a competitive shooter or the next moba. But for The Flock it makes a lot of sense. Also, these three design goals – the things that we think makes our game special – won’t last forever. At some point the game will stop being scary, immersive or unconventional, whereas competitiveness lasts forever. You can’t keep playing a horror game forever, but it doesn’t mean the game has no right to exist.

So here’s the question we asked ourselves: isn’t it worth sacrificing the ability to replay the game after say two years’ time? What kind of experience will these players be getting? They would come online and find no one to play against or just a few players who are either really good or very new to the game. That’s not a fun player-experience. So isn’t it worth sacrificing that ability in order to improve the experience for most players when most players are playing the game? We do think so.

But see, I’m super ok with them cutting the support. At least they let you know of the plan up front, at the very start. They have a unique and interesting idea, to create sort of a legacy, and I’m happy to support their vision - especially at $1.50.

Agreed 100%. I absolutely would support the developers of this game; I don’t believe the life counter is intended as a scummy business practice, but rather as a unique mechanic and timeline around which the game is built. I fully encourage smaller indie developers to think up and release games like this one because they do the one thing I love most about indie games - they break the mold. The intention while developing this game was not to come up with a cool concept then turn it into a multiplayer-only competitive game with progression and a long-term playerbase like with Dead by Daylight; it was to create a unique and interesting experience that will stick in your mind a lot longer than a straightforward match of Evolve or Overwatch.

They abandoned this game almost instantly after it’s release. I asked a dev about them fixing a bug that prevented me from playing at the same time as my boyfriend and they said it was in one of the 3 upcoming patches… They released 2 of the 3 at the start. None of those two had the fix… So I just ditched the game.